Multi-use syringes are used in medicine, veterinary practice and especially in dentistry for the administration of anaesthetic injections into the mouth, or may be used for mass-vaccination programs. Devices are known for the removal of used disposable needles from the syringe. Typically a needle disposal container may be provided with a lid having a shaped aperture for engagement with a needle hub. The technician or nurse carefully inserts the needle into the aperture so that the needle hub is held stationary within the aperture and then unscrews the syringe from the needle hub and the needle drops into the disposal container.
In another known apparatus shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,323, there is disclosed a disposal container fitted with a motorized device that facilitates one handed needle removal. The devices disclosed in '323 for engaging the needle hub are all provided on the lid of a disposal container and frictionally engage the side of an inserted needle hub causing the hub to unscrew. This allows the needle to fall freely into the container after removal. However, if the frictional engagement is insufficient to unscrew the needle hub then the needle will remain in place. A more positive unscrewing action is shown in '323 provided by an open aperture in a rotatable gear wheel which engages the external surface of the hub. However in order to prevent the hub from passing completely through the aperture provision must be made for the syringe body to act as a stop when inserting the needle hub into the aperture so that the needle and hub are not fully enclosed within the disposal container when the needle hub is unscrewed. This may give rise to difficulties in use and also to problems of cross contamination and infection.
The present invention provides a needle removal device in which the needle and hub and adjacent syringe body are all located within a housing when the needle is unscrewed thereby reducing the chances of cross contamination and danger of infection or injury to the operator removing the needle.